Myopic Refractive Errors and Anxiety Level in 18- to 22-Year-Old People

Abstract

Modern research is increasingly raising the question of the relationship between visual functions and the state of the central nervous system. This allows us to suggests that ophthalmological disorders, including myopia, may affect a person’s psycho-emotional state, in particular, the level of anxiety. The purpose of this article was to study the dependence of the severity of anxiety on the degree of myopia in young men and women living in the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation. Materials and methods. The research was conducted in 2022–2024 and involved 184 male and female students of Northern State Medical University aged between 18 and 22 years (mean age 19.5 years). During the ophthalmic examination, uncorrected visual acuity was assessed using the Golovin–Sivtsev table and best-corrected visual acuity parameters were determined. Automated refractometry was applied to measure clinical refraction. A total of 104 subjects were diagnosed with myopic refraction (low, moderate and high myopia), while the remaining 80 had no ophthalmic pathology. During psychological testing, the level of trait anxiety was assessed using the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale (adapted by V.G. Norakidze). Results. The research found no effect of visual acuity on the psycho-emotional state of young people, which may be due to the small sample size and to the underrepresentation of subjects with high myopia in the study. We assume that increasing the sample size and recruiting participants with various degrees of nearsightedness, including high myopia, may reveal other patterns. Further in-depth research into this topic will allow us to draw more accurate conclusions.